


Nothing but a Shadow

by RubyBakeneko



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence (referenced), Dreams, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Explicit Will/Molly, Nostalgia, Season/Series 03, Sexual Fantasy, Unhealthy Relationship With a Scarf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 02:12:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13672113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyBakeneko/pseuds/RubyBakeneko
Summary: A discussion of Valentine’s Day leads Will to reopen a box he has been hiding.





	Nothing but a Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> As I so often do, I procrastinated and fretted for ages, then wrote this in a bit of a rush in order to meet the challenge deadline. For those of you who are allergic to non-Hannigram pairings, I also want to emphasize that although Molly and Will are together at the time of this fic, the “explicit” rating is not for their relationship but rather for Will’s thoughts about Hannibal.

“Morning,” Will says, squinting in the bright sun streaming through the kitchen window.

Molly is cooking breakfast, and the pan sizzles loudly. “Morning, handsome. Wally’s still sleeping.”

“I’ll go up and knock on his door in a minute. Do you need any help?”

“No, I’ve got this,” Molly says, expertly flipping a golden pancake. “Hey, do you want to do something special tomorrow?”

“What’s tomorrow?”

Molly twists around to look at him for a second, eyes narrowed in curiosity. “Don’t you celebrate Valentine’s Day, Will?”

“Uh, not really,” Will shrugs, unsure if he should be apologetic. He met Molly just less than a year ago, and can’t recall ever discussing the subject with her. “Is it important to you?” 

“God no, it’s not important,” she laughs, leaning back against him. “I know it’s a silly, tacky holiday. But I like an excuse for happiness—for gratitude, you know? And I’m grateful I have you.”

He plants a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m grateful I have you too,” he says lightly. “Let’s go out for a meal tomorrow evening.”

—

Will’s dreams of the past are sporadic and unpredictable. He can go weeks without having a single one, and then suddenly there will be stretches of days at a time where he can’t escape the intrusion of Hannibal’s voice. Sometimes the dreams are surreal and nightmarishly beautiful, the feathered stag at his heels. At other times, Will’s imagination spins different endings to old events, showing him what it might be like to be on the run, living under assumed identities and moving from place to place. But mostly, he finds himself in Hannibal's office, talking and analyzing. In those dreams, Hannibal offers his withering take on the narrative of Will’s new life, and Will wakes up feeling nauseatingly guilty that any part of his psyche could be so cruel.

“An intimate dinner for two,” Hannibal says dryly. “If I remember correctly, that’s the sort of thing you quite enjoy.”

Will rolls his eyes. “It was hardly the same."

“I gave you a valentine, if you recall.”

Will remembers, of course—the flayed corpse twisted into a heart, dramatically displayed in Palermo. Just one of many perverse gestures of devotion, but perhaps the most overt.

“It wasn’t even on the right day,” he mutters.

“And what shall you buy for your lovely wife, now that the right day is here?”

“Don’t talk about her like that.”

Hannibal feigns innocence. “Like what, Will? She is rather lovely.”

“Like what? You _know_ what.”

“A pair of earrings, perhaps. Or a bouquet of roses,” Hannibal’s lip quirks. “A gift as original and pure as your love.”

Will sidesteps the bait. “Molly doesn’t need me to get her anything. She just wants my company.”

“And what company it is.”

—

Molly makes a reservation at a family-run restaurant a few miles from their house, its countryside location ensuring relative quietude even on such a busy holiday. The time rushes by as they talk and eat their way through two courses, and Will fleetingly thinks of how relaxing and straightforward everything has always been between them. Even on the day they first met, Molly had quickly melted him with her sunny smile, unperturbed by his initial awkwardness.

“This is nice,” she sighs contentedly as they wait for dessert, sitting back in her chair and taking a swig of beer. “So much better than all that clichéd crap—you know, pink balloons, and fancy necklaces you’ll only ever wear once.”

“I don’t have much basis for comparison,” Will admits. For a second he sees Hannibal standing at the opposite side of the restaurant, an imperious half-smirk on his face. Will blinks, dislodging the image.

“Oh god, I think I have too much basis for comparison,” Molly says. “I remember my first valentine, in sixth grade. This twitchy little boy with allergies—Jared Hoke—he came up to me with a ribbon-wrapped cactus and just flat out told me he loved me. I don't think he'd ever said a word to me before!”

Will laughs, grimacing in secondhand embarrassment. “Not exactly setting a high bar for me to clear later.”

“Surely someone has tried to woo _you_ with something weird,” Molly says mischievously, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. “Come on, spill.”

Will swallows, feels his throat tighten. “I…”

Molly’s face falls. “I didn’t mean that.”

He tries to recover the affable mood, but there’s a distance between them now. It takes another round of drinks and a change of subject for them to revert to their usual level of comfort.

—

Will lies awake, staring at the ceiling as Molly snores softly next to him. Whether because of last night’s dream, tonight’s dinner conversation, or some other thing beyond his reach, his hands twitch at his sides and his skin crawls. _Like I need a fix_ , he thinks. All the more reason to fight the urge and to stay anchored in the present.

Ten more minutes of restless discomfort tick past, Will’s heart thudding in time with the clock. Eventually, he creeps out from under the covers, pulling the top blanket up over Molly’s exposed shoulder. Careful to avoid the creakiest floorboards, he makes his way to the smallest of the two guest bedrooms, a space cluttered with things they plan to sell. Stepping over a pile of clothes Wally has outgrown, Will stands on a chair to reach up to the top shelf of the wardrobe. There, behind bedlinen, he feels the solid bulk of a cardboard box. He hesitates, numbly acknowledging the foresight that went into secretly preserving these old parts of his life—like he’d always known he’d be back for them.

He takes the box downstairs into the living room, uses scissors to slice through the tape. There’s a flutter in his stomach. He wants to call it anxiety or distress, but he knows it’s really a kind of sick excitement. The contents of the box are innocuous at first glance, a jumble of objects that might even look dull to someone who failed to notice the common theme. Among the papers, Will sees one of the gourmet recipes he cooks for his dogs and has long since committed to memory. There are a few gifts for Abigail that he can’t stand to touch, bought in a sentimental rush. He feels a flush of shame as he sees Hannibal’s business card tucked down to one side, its neat font and elegant design sinister in its deceptive professionalism. There’s no way to explain or justify Will’s choice to save that.

With hesitant fingers, he lifts the dark grey scarf he bought when he was released from prison—one of many minor embellishments that helped with his plan to neaten up his appearance. _He’ll trust me if I seem more like him_ , Will had told himself, ignoring the way his pulse sped up when he felt Hannibal’s eyes run up and down his body. He couldn’t bring himself to wear the scarf after Hannibal left and Abigail died, but nor could bring himself to throw it away. It was emblematic of his alleged disguise, of his thrilling and dangerous submergence into the world Hannibal had wanted them to inhabit together. And he remembers what it was like to step into that world, honesty and lies all twisting together until each looked like the other and neither felt safe or clean. Remembers how, underneath his fury, something eerily warm grew and gnawed at the core of him.

It’s just a scarf. But holding it now, Will wants to tie it around his neck. He wonders how tight he’d pull if he allowed himself. He imagines Hannibal standing before him and tugging the knot tighter still, their faces just inches apart, Hannibal’s breath against his lips. He shakes his head and drops the scarf. He should put all of this away. But even as he thinks this, he’s reaching for the ivory thickness of a folded piece of paper. This is what had lured him to open the box in the first place.

He unfolds the drawing and feels a sharp pang of nostalgia. Hannibal had often channeled their dynamic into art, the shifting undercurrents of their relationship depicted through mythical creatures, fictional characters or historical figures. But one evening after they ate, he fixed Will with that honeyed gaze and asked, ever so politely, “May I sketch you?”

Lubricated by wine, Will had consented and sat in quiet reflection for the better part of an hour while Hannibal studied the angles and planes of his face. The result was this precious and awful thing that he now holds—a portrait of Will sitting at Hannibal’s table. He’s holding his empty glass and staring past Hannibal as though forcibly preventing himself from seeing him. Will recalls his cheeks burning when Hannibal gave him the sketch, remembers coughing and looking away. “This isn’t how I see myself,” he had said flatly, when what he’d meant was “I didn’t know you saw me like this.”

Will’s mind rushes with images of all that came after—blood on the kitchen floor, the unreality of his journey across Europe and the obsessive hunt for Hannibal. Will touches the jagged scar on his forehead and thinks _there’s a souvenir you can’t put in a box_. A tiny noise slips out of him, almost like a little laugh, and the jarring inappropriateness of the sound jerks him back to reality.

All of this would be utterly beyond Molly’s comprehension, he realizes. And that’s part of the point of the life he’s built, of course—to be loved by a person too good to understand the whole picture, who accepts his wounds and fractures without ever looking too closely at what they might mean. What would she say if she could see this box? She would see warped sentimentality, secretiveness, self-destructive urges. In other words, she would see the truth—that Will has saved all these scraps like a pining, grieving lover, because to all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what he is.

He should get rid of all of it. He knows that, just like he knows he won’t get rid of any of it. He carefully repacks the box, reseals it and pushes it into the cupboard again. But he leaves the scarf out, hanging it up in the closet with his family’s jackets. It’s just a scarf, after all, and it’s practical. Wearing it again could symbolize moving on, in a way. He has the power to strip it of its previous significance, he tells himself.

—

He dreams Hannibal is watching him in a room he doesn’t recognize. His chest is aching, something hard and cold burrowing under his skin. He gasps and clutches it with both hands, feels the object push through his ribs with a sickening, slick snap. He looks down and sees a silver key sitting in his right palm, a sheen of red on its ornate surface. Will’s hands drip with blood, and Hannibal smiles.

“You’ll take it from me eventually,” Will says. “Like you’ve always taken everything.”

Hannibal reaches for Will’s left hand, raises it his mouth and licks the blood from Will’s fingers, tongue velvety hot. 

“I won’t need to,” he says, gazing into Will’s eyes. “You will give it to me.”

The key drops to the floor.

In the morning, Molly kisses his arm and starts to work her way towards his mouth, but he panics. “I think I’m coming down with something,” he says. “You shouldn’t come near me.”

—

Weeks pass. Will dreams of Hannibal so often now that it’s like he’s living a double life—one in his body when he’s awake, and one in his mind when he’s asleep. He is exhausted, often choosing to read books alone at night instead of engaging with Molly.

He wears the scarf one day when they bundle up with Wally and take a cold walk down by the river. “You look cute,” Molly appraises him, breath coming out as a cloud of steam in the freezing air. “Not your usual style, but I like it.”

They hold gloved hands, and she talks to him about her memories of playing by the water as a kid. Will makes all the appropriate noises in most of the right places, but the scarf burns at his throat, and he thinks of the day he attended Freddie Lounds’ staged funeral.

He escalates to dreams of killing with Hannibal, exhilarated and wild, bodies pressed together as they stand kissing in the aftermath. In these moments Will is mindless, desperate, rutting against Hannibal’s thigh and pulling at his clothes. He feels animalistic and unashamed, heart racing with lust under Hannibal’s palm splayed wide on his chest. He is free and deadly, bold and electrified, ready to pull Hannibal down into the dirt and wrap his legs around him, fingernails digging into his back. “I need you inside me,” he says against Hannibal’s hungry mouth.

“I’m already inside you,” Hannibal whispers, and Will jolts awake.

He’s incredibly hard, cock throbbing uncomfortably between his legs. He’s alone—he can hear Molly in the shower already, knows it’s safe to slide a furtive hand down his pajama pants. His toes curl, and he bites deep into his lip to silence his moans of pleasure as he works himself to a fast, white-hot orgasm. In his imagination, Hannibal is the one touching him, holding Will’s hips down and swallowing around him.

He cleans up and then buries his boxers in the laundry basket. He feels ill, depraved, traitorous, a latent danger to his new family. Not Molly’s sweet man. Not a decent father. Someone who yearns for a monster, and who feels a dormant monster of his own fighting to emerge.

—

Two days later, he comes home after walking the dogs and finds Molly looking at him, arms folded. “I can’t ignore this anymore. There’s something wrong with you, Will.”

_Of course there is._

“What do you mean?” he says.

“I didn’t mean that quite how it sounded,” she sighs, shoulders sagging. “Shit, I’m sorry. I just want you to talk to me, and I’m frustrated as hell. You’re not really here, and it’s—I just don’t know where you are, and I don’t know how to make you come back to me.”

Will says nothing. He stands helpless and guilty, struck by the painful truth of what Molly is describing.

Her mouth twists, eyes brimming with tears. “Is it me?”

Spurred into action by her sadness, Will crosses the room to hold her. “No, Molly,” he says into her hair, stroking her arm. “No. Nothing is your fault. Can we sit?”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath and lets him lead her to the couch. He thinks about what she’s asking, about what she’s noticed. About how focused on himself—on Hannibal—he must have been to not pick up on what she was feeling. He opens his heart to her now, and her loneliness rushes into him like a tide.

“You’re right,” he says. “I haven’t been very present lately.”

“Then what’s your deal?” she asks with a wan smile, trying to reassert her usual no-nonsense bravado.

Will closes his eyes, tries to think of a way to put this in terms she can understand. “Sometimes my past catches up with me a little,” he says carefully. “The memories are… difficult for me, and I can get lost in them.”

“So why not talk to me when it happens?” she asks, impatient in her desire to care for him. “I’m your wife. Let me in, and I can help you.”

 _I wish you could_ , Will thinks. He takes her hand in his and leans forward. “You know what kind of things happened to me,” he says. “I think I want to protect you, wall you off from the ugliness of my old life. I think I want it so much that I end up shutting you out.”

She accepts his white lies, wide-eyed and willfully trusting in spite of her natural shrewdness. She embraces him, and Will’s self-loathing merges with her compassion until his own eyes sting with tears. It is clear to him that if he wants his marriage to survive, wants his goodness to survive, then he has to find it in himself to get that box—and all the temptation it holds—out of his thoughts and out of this house.

—

In the early hours of the next morning, Will hacks open the box and throws the scarf back in without looking at any of the other contents. He drives for two hours and puts it all in storage with his old furniture—puts it where there are more barriers in place to stop him from relapsing at the slightest provocation.

“Hiding from me is just hiding from yourself,” Hannibal says in the back of Will’s mind. “You make yourself nothing but a shadow.”

He knows, now, that he isn’t strong enough to hold on forever. That he’s treating the symptoms and not the disease, and that this simple, gentle life he has built for himself can only ever be temporary. When the moment comes—and it will come—he won’t be able to resist the opportunity. He will let Hannibal back in, one way or another. He wonders how much time he has left. He wonders if he’s even capable of telling the difference between dread and anticipation anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m also [rubybakeneko](https://rubybakeneko.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. Come and say hi any time! And [here's the link to this story on tumblr, should you feel inclined to share it](https://rubybakeneko.tumblr.com/post/171029177930/nothing-but-a-shadow-rubybakeneko-hannibal#notes). Thanks for reading!


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